This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I have been watching a lot about housing lately. The lack of affordability and so on. I won't bother you with details, since they are known to everyone. Almost every capital city in the developed world (and big parts of developing) is struggling with unaffordable rent, insane house price rises etc.
The process is usually something like this. Rural people move to cities, city people move to capital cities and capital cities people move to global cities. And global cities people try to live as close as possible to the city center. All the eastern europeans that I know that moved to UK didn't move to bumfuck nowhere in the Midlands. They moved to London. Ditto for a lot of other immigrants into the UK. So there is real demand to live in London. The process of concentration of people in the big metro areas doesn't seem to slow down or reverse (white flight is the only counter example).
So there is the minor problem that I have with YIMBY people - why do you think that building more will actually solve the problem with unaffordable housing? We have been adding lanes to highways since time immemorial (aka the 50s) and the congestion is still here.
But what I have been thinking is - are freedom of movement and affordable housing compatible at all? The communist regimes had something like city citizenship - you were allowed to move to the capital only with marriage/secured job in the city. Not saying it was good, but it kept the capitals a bit emptier. In the 30 years since the Berlin wall fell in my eastern european country the only people that didn't try to move to the capital are the ones that moved to London, Paris and the big German cities to make their housing situation worse.
Now people are sometimes just priced out and they move. And if the city becomes terrible people will also move. But so far it seems that if the city is safe enough, people are willing to tolerate insane economic hardships to live there. We can't cram 8 billion people in 20-30 megapolises. Could this be solved with policies alone? Should we even solve it? Is it ok to infringe on the right to move to actually strike a balance.
Cities are dynamic things. Why do you assume everyone will congregate in fewer and fewer of them? Austin was a college town before Dell and Motorola got going, there. Sun Belt cities with low taxes are attracting migrants from other U.S. metros — both people and businesses.
As the adoption of telecommuting was sped up by the pandemic, it has changed how employers weigh a city’s human and cultural capital against what a desk costs in that city. A desk in Jacksonville or Dallas costs way less than one in NYC or SF.
A potential counter to the above might be global warming if it drives people north and a bit inland.
Climate change isn't going to drive people anywhere on a timescale that matters to people living today. If anything, we are seeing a migration from northern areas to southern ones (at least in the U.S.). In terms of heating degree days, most of the northern U.S. and all of Canada is very energy intensive to live in compared to the southern U.S. This will continue to be the case for decades in the future even in worse-case scenarios. We still haven't fully realized the gains from the invention of AC, which happened in 1901.
Yes, but folks in cooler states aren’t going to consent to having their water diverted to the Southwest and southern California.
"Folks" don't have large amounts of water to divert. Agriculture uses c. 90% of the water essentially everywhere, and in the US that means large commercial agribusiness. Large businesses can be paid off - cheaply if they are using the water to irrigate low-value crops like alfalfa. Current water law in the US west mostly prohibits this type of transaction, but laws can be changed.
Why do you think alfalfa is low value? Should hay the primary input for milk and secondary input for beef and eggs be scarcer, more expensive? $7 for a dozen eggs is bad enough right now.
I didn't say anything about should, I said alfalfa was low value. A quick google says that alfalfa prices are about $240 per ton, and this is considered scandalously high with the long-term average price sub-$200. Wheat is $7.40 per bushel, which works out at about $270 per ton. Most crops worth irrigating are worth more than wheat, not less. Wikipedia says that alfalfa is 18% of California's irrigation water and 4% of the farm revenue - also consistent with low value.
I have no idea why eggs in California are $7 a dozen - it looks like they are quite a bit cheaper on the east coast. In the UK we pay about $3 a dozen, and our hens don't eat subsidised alfalfa. Does the $7 include reparations for black hens or something equally stupid?
Eggs in the US in general underwent a massive spike from a flu outbreak that wiped out a bunch of hens. The point of comparison is that minor absolute value but high percentage increases in price on common, high volume items like eggs greatly affect the day to day of consumers. Adding on to the current scarcity/pricing concerns for those items seems ill-advised to me but I'm economically insulated from it and will probably profit regardless. Alfalfa is a major hay crop for boosting productivity of dairy cows lowering the costs of milk among other uses for it in feeds. Constrain that crop and you'll have downstream effects on prices of things people care about like milk.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link